Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/447

Rh should in some way be systematically garnered and so treasured that the rising generation shall have access to them. Our universities also comprise an assemblage of men of expert knowledge who would, many of them, greatly profit by being brought into closer touch with the world of affairs about them. The advance of the university into the field of higher commercial education can only be made successful by devising means of bringing the university into closer contact with the industrial and commercial institutions of the country. This is desirable not only for the sake of keeping the learning of the university from becoming stagnant with antiquated knowledge and to permit the rendering of the most effective service, but is necessary to prevent any serious hiatus between the academic life of the student and his later business career. The task of those interested in the advancement of commercial education appears to be a two-fold one; to prepare the necessary course of instruction, and to obtain from the business community the close sympathy and cooperation essential to the achievement of any large success.

The course of instruction finally adopted will necessarily be framed to correspond with the ideal which is formed of the business man as a person of power and knowledge. In the forming of this ideal there is need of much discriminating observation. All will agree upon the need of honesty and dependability and a certain complement of attractive personal qualities, and tenacity of purpose, and fertility of resource, which is closely allied to it. There is required also executive ability, a most complex manifestation of the personality involving character as well as rapid mental processes and the power to subordinate detail and quickly choose the vital points of a matter. The business man has constant need of the power to judge men, and of retentiveness of memory, together with that healthful working together of all the powers of mind involved in good judgment or common sense. The question must be answered. How in the choice of these and other characteristics does the educational problem of the future business man differ from the education of the man who is to get ahead in other walks of life? So far as this problem of evoking the latent powers of mind and heart is concerned, more undoubtedly depends upon the environment of the student's life, the ideals held before him, the methods of teaching, and the care taken to cultivate his powers of initiative, than upon the specific things studied. It may be suspicioned that courses of higher commercial education which differ in no particular from other university courses, except in the choice of studies, are half-hearted attempts at the solution of a new problem the real difficulties of which are not appreciated.

Turning to the subject-matter composing the courses in higher commercial education, provided by some fifteen of our larger universities, we find the most prominent place among the studies designed to give